IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE POLICY AND PRACTICE

My study made unique contributions to the current understanding of the longitudinal relationships between peer leaders, student involvement, GPA and persistence. Results from the mediation analyses of my study supported the extant conclusion that peer leaders are effective, especially graduate peer leaders, although not

in a direct way. Students’ actual time and effort spent on studying were the key to mediate the effects of graduate peer leaders on students’ end-of-first-year GPAs and second-year persistence. These findings had significant implications for administrators, instructors, peer leaders and students in FYSs.

Promoting understanding. First, FYSs should educate administrators,

instructors, peer leaders and students regarding the significant role of student effort and study time in GPA and persistence, and that students’ pre-college characteristics (e.g., gender, race, parent education, SAT/ACT scores) and class characteristics (e.g., FYS instructor gender, classification, educational degree) may not have direct effects on student persistence. The understanding of these findings can help administrators, instructors, peer leaders and students more actively focus on the controllable variables such as the promotion of academic involvement. Second, it is important for FYS

administrators, instructors, peer leaders and students to be aware that having a peer leader does not guarantee academic success in college. First-year students’ effort and time are crucial for peer leaders to reach their maximum effectiveness in FYSs. Also, it is

especially important for peer leaders to communicate and model their effort in academics when assisting first-year students on a daily basis.

The use of graduate peer leaders. Based on the findings that graduate peer

leaders had significantly higher indirect effects on students’ end-of-first GPAs and second-year persistence than undergraduate peer leaders, FYSs should first consider expanding the use of graduate peer leaders. Currently, the majority of peer leaders in FYSs are undergraduate peer leaders. As shown by my study sample, 70.5% of the FYS students had an undergraduate peer leader and only 19.9% of the students had a graduate

peer leader in their classes. Second, FYSs should further identify what specific practices that graduate peer leaders have been using to increase first-year students’ study time outside of classes that in turn have the potential to increase students’ end-of-first-year GPAs, and then lead to higher chance of second-year persistence. Third, FYSs should promote communication and experience sharing between graduate peer leaders and undergraduate peer leaders, so that undergraduate peer leaders can have more opportunities to learn from the experiences of graduate peer leaders.

FYS curriculum design. FYSs should integrate the goal of promoting first-year

students’ behavioral academic involvement into the design of program curricula. As demonstrated by my study, students’ behavioral academic involvement (i.e., study hours) was the only significant predictor that mediated the effects of peer leaders on FYS students’ end-of-first-year GPAs and second-year persistence. Therefore, it is critical to specifically incorporate the goal of promoting students’ academic involvement into the design of FYS instruction, classroom activities and assignments. Practices such as establishing learning communities among FYS students have been shown to be effective in promoting both academic and social involvement for students (e.g., Tinto, 2002; Zhao & Kuh, 2004). The basic idea of a learning community is for FYS students who register for the same courses to form a study group and study together for an entire semester. Peer leaders can play the role of facilitators in a learning community. Practices such as

learning communities not only work to promote academic involvement, but also peer involvement that is believed to be the “strongest single source of influence” on student development (Astin, 1984, p. 590).

Study hours. My study found that some FYS students, especially male students, may have unreasonable beliefs about the amount of time that they should spend studying. Male students in my study rated a higher level of perceived effort in the FYS than female students, although they also reported less study hours than female students. As suggested by previous research (e.g., Cerrito & Levi, 1999; Thibodeaux, Deutsch, Kitsantas, & Winsler, 2017), it is not uncommon for college students to lack an accurate understanding of how much time they should spend studying. Given the significant direct and indirect effects of students’ study hours on end-of-first year GPAs and second-year persistence in my study, it is important for FYSs to investigate students’ beliefs in the amount of time and effort that they should invest in studies, and if necessary, to also design interventions that target to reframe first-year students’ unreasonable beliefs on study time. Also, based on the finding that FYS students who were taught by faculty members reported more study hours than students who were taught by classified staff, FYSs should also create more opportunities for communication and experience sharing among different types of FYS instructors.

Promote perceived involvement. Results from my study showed that male

students reported a lower level of perceived involvement as a result of the FYS,

academically and socially, than female students. FYS students who had high SAT/ACT scores also reported a lower level of perceived academic and social involvement

compared to students with medium SAT/ACT scores. Therefore, FYSs should pay more attention to these two groups of students. Instructions, activities and assignments need to be better designed to meet the involvement needs of these students. For students who have high pre-college academic achievement, FYS instructors and peer leaders should

ensure that FYS coursework and assignments meet the intellectual needs of those students to prevent disengagement and boredom. This is particularly important for institutions with the majority of students having medium level of prior achievement, as it was in my study sample.

Another finding worth attention is that FYS students who lived off campus reported a higher level of perceived academic and social involvement as a result of the FYS. Thus, the effects of FYSs may be greater for students who have fewer opportunities to be involved academically and socially on campus. FYSs should continue to identify students who have less access to campus resources and who are more at risk of un-

involvement, such as historically underrepresented students in higher institutions, so as to better provide services and support for them.